posted at 1:01 pm on December 14, 2012 by Erika Johnsen

CBS is reporting that 27 people have been killed by a lone gunman at an elementary school in Connecticut:

CBS News is reporting that 27 people are dead, including 14 students, after a shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. The gunman is among the dead.

CBS News’ John Miller reports there is preliminary information that the gunman was the father of one of the students. Miller additionally reports the gunman is 20 years old and is from New Jersey.

The shooter was killed and apparently had two guns, a person with knowledge of the shooting said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still under way. It is not known whether the shooter took his own life or was killed.

DEVELOPING: Authorities say at least 26 people, including 18 children, were killed Friday when a gunman opened fire inside a Connecticut elementary school.

A law enforcement official said the shooter, who is dead, is believed to be a father of one of the students at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

An official with knowledge of the situation told the Associated Press that the man apparently had two guns.

Earlier reports of a second gunman are unconfirmed. The Connecticut Post reports that police are also questioning a handcuffed man in connection with the shooting. Witnesses told the newspaper he was led out of the woods by officers.

Update: While it appears that one gunman is dead, there are more unconfirmed reports of a possible second gunman:

Police report that the school is now cleared of shooters, but they are still treating it as an active shooter situation and all schools in the district remain locked down. There are unconfirmed reports of a second shooter, but it is unclear what happened to that gunman.

State police officers have gone classroom to classroom to make sure the school is clear. Authorities are searching the area, doing roadblocks and checking suspicious vehicles out of an abundance of caution. There are also unconfirmed reports that authorities have surrounded a purple van in Danbury that may be connected to the shooting. …

The first 911 call reportedly came in just after 9:40 a.m., stating that multiple students were trapped in a classroom with a gunman, who authorities say was an adult who had at least two guns. The school locks its exterior doors during the school day, so it is unclear how the gunman or gunmen gained access to the building.

“There is — will be, rather — a day for discussion of the usual Washington policy debates but I don’t think that day is today,” Carney said, noting also that President Obama believes that “it’s important on a day like to day to . . . feel enormous sympathy for families that are affected and to do everything we can to support state and local law enforcement and to support those who are enduring what appears to be a very tragic event.”

Update:

Update (MKH):

Local law enforcement held a press conference around 1:45 p.m., with a spokesman for Gov. Malloy and a Lt. Paul Vance in the state police force. There wasn’t much that we don’t already know, but there’s a bit about the timeline of the day.

Newtown Police received the 911 call at 9:30 a.m. They contacted state police and requested assistance from state police and surrounding police forces.

Police entered the school immediately upon arrival and conducted an active shooter search, which means “every door, every crack, every crevice, every portion of that school” was searched, Vance said.

“There were several fatalities at the scene, both students and staff,” Vance said, but said no specific information was being given out until all notifications were made.

Blowback

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Comments

You know, I’m just leaving. I just got married, very excited to start a family, but this just doesn’t happen everywhere. There’s a sickness that leads to this, and for whatever reason that sickness seems more pronounced here than elsewhere.

ernesto on December 14, 2012 at 1:40 PM

May I suggest Pakistan or Syria? I hear they’re less violent than the US.

The second shooter (if that is what he was) in the woods near the school, looks like he may have been waiting outside, hoping that those fleeing the school would have been targets for him.
What is this world coming too?

You know, I’m just leaving. I just got married, very excited to start a family, but this just doesn’t happen everywhere. There’s a sickness that leads to this, and for whatever reason that sickness seems more pronounced here than elsewhere.

ernesto on December 14, 2012 at 1:40 PM

Please go to Norway where a loon killed 77 children. Don’t let the door hit you in the azz on the way out.

I am not going to offer any prayers, since I am an atheist, but it does occur to me that those children are not in heaven, and the shooters are not going to hell. These realities increase the horror I feel at this situation.

PS: How many school shootings have there been in Switzerland where nearly ever household in the country has at least one gun?

Resist We Much on December 14, 2012 at 1:38 PM

And to follow up on that – how many mass shootings have occurred in Switzerland – where everyone in the country is required to have a gun – in fact assault rifles issued by the government because every citizen is considered part of the national militia.

BEIJING (Reuters) – A knife-wielding man slashed 22 children and an adult at an elementary school in central China on Friday, state media reported, the latest in a series of attacks on schoolchildren in the country.

There have been a series of attacks on schools and schoolchildren around China in recent years, some by people who have lost their jobs or felt left out of the country’s economic boom.

The rash of violence has prompted public calls for more measures to protect the young in a country where many couples only have one child.

In 2010, a man slashed 28 children, two teachers and a security guard in a kindergarten in eastern China.

There will be a time to debate and argue with the ignorant anti 2nd ammendment crowd. Right now isn’t it. My God, I can’t imagine the parents and horror that those children endured. I will be giving my kids a tighter hug when they get home from school. God Bless the families.

PS: How many school shootings have there been in Switzerland where nearly ever household in the country has at least one gun?

Resist We Much on December 14, 2012 at 1:38 PM

And to follow up on that – how many mass shootings have occurred in Switzerland – where everyone in the country is required to have a gun – in fact assault rifles issued by the government because every citizen is considered part of the national militia.

CT did do away with the Death Penalty last year, but only for new cases. There was too much outrage at the thought that the guys who killed the Pettit family might escape the needle.

However… a lot of legal commentators have said that having done away with it for all future cases gives those guys very good grounds for appealing their sentence.

And if indeed there is a surviving shooter, I bet a lot of folks are going to wish that was an option.

As for his getting into a locked school, most schools built in the last several decades have either glass doors, or large full length glass windows, easy enough to break through. After Beslan I took a very long hard look at my daughter’s elementary school, and concluded that nothing short of armed security would keep someone who wanted to do bad things out, too many full length windows, exterior doors to prefabs used as extra classrooms, and doors from classrooms to the outside. And that is a pretty typical school building style here in Connecticut.

If the argument is that school killings happen more frequently because of access to guns or are deadlier because of access to guns, perhaps there is a place to talk about gun restrictions (within the boundaries of the 2nd amendment).

However, most people talking about gun control are implying that these mass killings are mostly due to the availability of guns.

Finally, they all make the mistake of stopping at step 1 – Guns lead to school shootings so outlaw guns. They naively ignore that life is a series of tradeoffs. Do guns prevent more crimes than they cause? Does an armed populace prevent tyranny? Would we be safer if only the government (and people willing to break the law to get one) had guns? Is it alright to limit people’s freedoms for safety?

I rarely see any of those conversations happening in gun control discussions which makes most gun control discussions childishly pointless.

BEIJING (Reuters) – A knife-wielding man slashed 22 children and an adult at an elementary school in central China on Friday, state media reported, the latest in a series of attacks on schoolchildren in the country.

The man attacked the children at the gate of a school in Chenpeng village in Henan province, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Police arrested a 36-year-old man, identified as villager Min Yingjun, Xinhua said. It did not give further details of the extent of the injuries.

You know, I’m just leaving. I just got married, very excited to start a family, but this just doesn’t happen everywhere. There’s a sickness that leads to this, and for whatever reason that sickness seems more pronounced here than elsewhere.

As the father of a kindergartner all I can think of is how utterly monstrous this is. I will also make a prediction that the creature who did this was either suffering from untreated mental illness, substance abuse, or both. Leftist creeps and anti-gun pussies are no doubt coming out of the woodwork as we speak to denounce legal gun ownership, the NRA, “gun culture” and other assorted red herrings. If they were intellectually honest, however, they would be asking what leads someone to do something so vile and depraved. The tool the person uses is irrelevant.

You know, I’m just leaving. I just got married, very excited to start a family, but this just doesn’t happen everywhere. There’s a sickness that leads to this, and for whatever reason that sickness seems more pronounced here than elsewhere.

ernesto on December 14, 2012 at 1:40 PM

Take a good look at yourself and the policies you advocate. As the Left has strengthened its stranglehold on the media, education, family, the culture, etc, the more ill society has become.

If you tell people that one behaviour has no more value than another, then don’t be surprised when sickness gains a solid footing in society.

If you tell people that some life is more important than others, then don’t be surprised when the lines of what is acceptable termination of life become blurred.

“From the wild Irish slums of the 19th century Eastern seaboard to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: a community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future – that community asks for and gets chaos.”

This is a deep social problem, not a gun problem. Eradicate guns and the perpetrators of these PLANNED attacks would just walk into schools and start chucking homemade bombs around, or spray the kids with gasoline and set fire to them.

In the last 20 years or so we’ve seen a sharp increase not only in these mass shootings, but also in people killing their own kids and then themselves in disputes with their partner etc. You have to look at what is causing people to snap, not the tools they use to snap with.

I have my own theory. People these days are being raised without any idea of how to control their emotions. Liberal teaching methods concentrate on encouraging kids to “go with their emotions” and teach them that “if you feel it, it must be right.” The teaching of logic has been eradicated in favor of emotion. Instead of teaching kids that sometimes their emotions are wrong and that they have to use their logical mind to evaluate things, they’re being raised to bypass any sense of reason and just go with the first emotion that comes into their mind. The result is that people are growing up without any freaking idea of how to think things through calmly and logically. The seed of an emotion is born, and pretty soon it’s a full blown emotional storm which is beyond control.

And when you have an entire population growing up with this warped, emotional mentality, it’s only to be expected that more of them will break their emotional ceilings and snap.

When the papers were found in the Middle East of plans of American school buildings, the districts went nuts trying to secure their buildings. Not nuts enough though because there is nothing more porous than American schools. At that time all doors were locked and security became pretty good. As the years have past that security consciousness has lessened.
There is no amount of security for schools, short of search procedures, that keeps a parent out.

So sad that these senseless shootings continue to happen. Laugh or ridicule me if want, but I am totally convinced that the government is somehow behind these shootings involving elaborate brain washing techniques all for the sole purpose of gun control or confiscation.

So how many mass shootings happen in complete gun banned countries? According to your idiotic logic, those would be target heaven for crazies right, since the entire country is free of guns!!!

nonpartisan on December 14, 2012 at 1:29 PM

I highly suggest that you emigrate to Britain. You’ll get “single payer” free health care and you can be robbed in your home.

This is a very tragic, unpleasant event. It is smaller than the Fast and Furious mess. It isn’t the worst school shooting in the US. (Check out the historical record, there are those going back for years.)

The “gun free” paradises that you crave are not really so nice, but you’d have to experience them so that you could have the proper “feelings” about life there.

I highly recommend disengaging your emotions and engaging your brain.

Aurora was a bona-fide nut, the cops were notified and THEY DID NOTHING. The guy in Portand is very interesting, if you believe the quote in ABC news… that he had a sudden personality change a week before the incident. (Did he meet new friends? Start taking new drugs?)

And these guys? TWO of them? NO DESCRIPTIONS of the shooters so far? (Protected classes?)

After living through the media’s rendition of the election, why would anyone with half a brain jump to conclusions based on “news” reports?

Notice, I’m not talking about my feelings, because “feelings” don’t really matter, they are just in my head. Of course, cattle stampede at the sound of gunfire.

Meghan just scored a major success on Fox. She managed to interview a mother who lost a child at Columbine and bring her to tears as Fox tries to wring every bit of emotion out of the shooting for national viewing.

I am not going to offer any prayers, since I am an atheist, but it does occur to me that those children are not in heaven, and the shooters are not going to hell. These realities increase the horror I feel at this situation.

Actually, you’re wrong. However, it’s clear that you feel that it’s more important to claim that you have proven the negative.

It’s a cultural thing, as well as a media-driven phenomenon. In the 1970s and 1980s, serial killers were all the rage.

Resist We Much on December 14, 2012 at 1:46 PM

And in the 1960′s, political assassins were all the rage. If people have a mindset to horrible things and aren’t afraid of prison or death, they’re gonna do it. That’s the price of living in a free society.

He did not have to post his first sentence. He could have just asked his question. He was purposefully attempting to bait Christians into a thread-jacking argument.

kingsjester on December 14, 2012 at 1:54 PM

Sorry, I still disagree, I know quite a few atheists, and honestly, that is how a large percentage of them think. They are not trying to be offensive by saying things like that, to them, rather than be offensive, it is more of a comforting thought that nobody ends up in hell, and the horror of people dying for no reason is a genuine horror to them. They just think differently then people of faith.

I just figured that would be a more productive use of his time than coming here and complaining that he doesn’t like the 2nd Amendment.

Liberals are only impressed with the public’s opinion when it comports with their own. If they thought an amendment to eliminate the 2nd couldn’t be passed they’d just go around it. It’s what they do, and the end justifies their means, but nobody else’s.

I am not going to offer any prayers, since I am an atheist, but it does occur to me that those children are not in heaven, and the shooters are not going to hell. These realities increase the horror I feel at this situation.
However my thoughts are with everyone. Should teachers be armed?
Dr. Manhattan on December 14, 2012 at 1:46 PM

And in an atheist world it’s survival of the fittest. This kind of mayhem is perfectly normal in that kind of world. I choose to not belong to it. There is evil in the work and it must be vanquished.

Meghan just scored a major success on Fox. She managed to interview a mother who lost a child at Columbine and bring her to tears as Fox tries to wring every bit of emotion out of the shooting for national viewing.

a capella on December 14, 2012 at 1:56 PM

That’s one of the seamier sides of the mass media, IMO. On ABC they keep running a clip of a parent as he’s told the report of 27 dead. He puts his hand to his mouth in shock, and briefly turns away. Then cut back to the announcer … “He put his hand to his mouth”. And reports of children “crying hysterically”. They pimp other people’s emotion, presumably to manipulate the viewing audience. Rather than keeping it objective and factual.

As Twitchy reported, ghoulish lefties immediately jumped on the opportunity to politicize this morning’s tragic school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, that left nearly 30 people dead, most of whom were children. Now, right on cue, ignorant liberal celebrity vultures are swooping in to turn the tragedy into a gun control soapbox:

Past time!!! RT @sacca: 27 dead in a school shooting. 14 of them are kids. So tell me again, when are we allowed to talk about gun control?—
mia farrow (@MiaFarrow) December 14, 2012

The mission of your second term just arrived covered in blood, @BarackObama. If Congress gets in your way, we’ll throw them out. #enough—
Gerry Duggan (@GerryDuggan) December 14, 2012

These people are absolutely shameless. While they choose to exploit this horrific tragedy, we will continue to pray for the victims and their families.

Gun control is our only road to freedom. Freedom from the fear of senselessly losing children. I’m so saddened. WE NEED LAWS NOW.—
Rashida Jones (@iamrashidajones) December 14, 2012

Apparently the only way people can be free is by taking away their right of self defense…

I am not going to offer any prayers, since I am an atheist, but it does occur to me that those children are not in heaven, and the shooters are not going to hell. These realities increase the horror I feel at this situation.

However my thoughts are with everyone. Should teachers be armed?

Dr. Manhattan on December 14, 2012 at 1:46 PM

How do you know where the children are, and where the shooter/shooters is/are?

What science do you have to back your claim that they are not elsewhere now?

Take a good look at yourself and the policies you advocate. As the Left has strengthened its stranglehold on the media, education, family, the culture, etc, the more ill society has become.

If you tell people that one behaviour has no more value than another, then don’t be surprised when sickness gains a solid footing in society.

If you tell people that some life is more important than others, then don’t be surprised when the lines of what is acceptable termination of life become blurred.

“From the wild Irish slums of the 19th century Eastern seaboard to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: a community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future – that community asks for and gets chaos.”

– Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Family and Nation, 1965

Resist We Much on December 14, 2012 at 1:52 PM

+1

I’m disgusted at the shooting but should anyone really be surprised?
In a society that celebrates a woman killing her own unborn child as a form of birth control this sort of thing seems inevitable. A culture where people discard their own offspring in such a manner is bound to produce more people that would shoot children in an elementary school.

And to follow up on that – how many mass shootings have occurred in Switzerland – where everyone in the country is required to have a gun – in fact assault rifles issued by the government because every citizen is considered part of the national militia.

My children’s school has sign on all the doors that says “Concealed weapons prohibited”. So does the office where I work. Dollar says this school does too. We need a photograph of that sign to send to every “Progressive” and anti-gun creep who bleats about more gun laws.

I’m disgusted at the shooting but should anyone really be surprised?
In a society that celebrates a woman killing her own unborn child as a form of birth control this sort of thing seems inevitable. A culture where people discard their own offspring in such a manner is bound to produce more people that would shoot children in an elementary school.

gwelf on December 14, 2012 at 2:05 PM

Perhaps one big change in recent years has been the devaluing of life.

Folks looking for the reasons of recent changes should look at has changed recently….